Shadows and Joys of a Life in Bavaria

One of the things we can't do right now is travel.  But one things we have plenty of is time: time to read, time to travel in words and pictures.

I've been re-reading Gerlinde Pyron's memoir this morning.
Even if I didn't know the author, I would love this book!

Gerlinde has an impressive memory for detail, and her artfully-told stories evoke the mystery and allure of fairy tales.  (princesses, giants, witches, monsters, scary forests). I was so lucky to get  to hear some of these stories and see her family pictures (now in the book) when she was in a writing group.

Carlene wanted to read the book, but I didn't want to part with mine, so I just ordered her one from Amazon.  I highly recommend you get yourself a copy and visit Gerlinde's childhood world before she moved to America.  (Imagine moving to a foreign country alone, at seventeen, not speaking the language, and learning not only to speak the new language but to write eloquently in it!)

Here are a few excerpts to whet your appetite:

The only noise in the room was the steady tick-tock of the cuckoo clock on the wall, the scratchy crackle of her pen, the creaking of the bench as she shifted her weight, and the occasional tap-tap on the inkwell.

P. 67
Life in Bavaria

A unique smell of incense, earth, and flowers hovers in the air, and the humming of the bees and the distant ringing of the church bell brings back such sweet memories of after-school hours in that lovely and truly poignant place.

P. 49

In early spring, the dandelions in the meadow next to the orchard were in full bloom.  Then it was just too tempting to make a stop there for a while. What a pleasure to inhale the honeyed smell of those golden blooms.  The dandelion’s pliable, hollow stems were ideal to weave artful wreaths.  We pretended to be crowned as princesses when we put them on each other’s heads.  The stems oozed white sap that left sticky-brown smudges on our school aprons.  It made our mothers fuss when they saw those stains since they were so hard to get out.

P. 47

Another place that tempted us was at the last house in town.  The house belonged to the town’s grave digger, named Reinhard.  His orchard had a cherry tree, and the branches hung low over the fence when the fruit was ripe.  Those cherries were within reach of the sidewalk, and we just couldn’t resist pulling off handfuls of cherries, while we kept an eye on Reinhard’s windows. 


P. 47

I…remembered those heavy gray veils that hung over the countryside.  They shut out the sky and made the world eerily silent and mysterious. You couldn’t even see the neighbor’s house although it was less than fifty feet away.  Tante Annerl is easily frightened, so I understood it when she said that the dense fog often creates grisly shapes that were scary to her as she and her sisters walked home from school.  She said even the trees looked like stunted monsters in a fairy tale.


Her next door neighbor was her “favorite imaginary witch:

“Most mornings she waddled past my window, grumpy as always, with her yellowish shriveled fat framed by loose strands of gray hair straggling out from under her faded denim-colored kerchief. She was hunchbacked and held on to her walking stick.  It was so easy to make up  my own fairy tale where this witch would get lost in the nearby woods or be swallowed by an evil monster.”

P. 46

"It was always so cold in that bedroom but at least sunlight made the intricate ice flowers sparkle on the curtain-less windows."

p. 60

"By the time we started down the hill, Hans let them gallop for a stretch.  The speed was such a thrill as snow sprayed in all directions.  Flecks of it flew in my face but I didn't mind at all.  When the horses slowed down, they dribbled white, foamy slobber that froze on their muzzles.  The sleigh swayed gently as they trotted along bare-branched hedge rows tipped with puffy caps of snow.  We moved along  rough-plowed fields where smudges of brown earth peeked through the snow....

"After more than an hour's ride, the road led into a forest.  The fir trees were covered in such enormous pillows of snow that they could have been big-bellied giants lining up beside us.  Sprays of light feathery snow floated down on us when birds shook a branch while lifting off for flight.  My eyes followed the different traces of animals in the forest such as the black rabbit pellets on the snow banks, the tracks of deer hooves, and the stick-like signatures of crows' feet." 

p. 62


If you enjoy these vivid excerpts, treat yourself to the book.  The cover of the book, a village dusted in snow, is also one of Gerlinde's paintings.